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There's a federal election coming up some time this year, and unless I'm mistaken, Conroy's seat will be up for grabs. (Federal Senate terms are for 6 years except in the case of a double dissolution.) How about the Communications Minister gets kicked out of his office? It is obvious enough to everybody that he is utterly incompetent, and that his accomplishments are better suited to running an ice-cream van.

Disclaimer: I support his party at elections, in the absence of a more s

We already have a "piracy code of conduct" it's called The Law. ISPs should not be conducting vigilante operations at the whim of private enterprises. If copyright holders wish to stop a user from file-sharing they must take that user to court and deal with them under the judicial oversight of the courts.

No, the ISPs are the people who build and maintain the roads on which murderers travel to their victims' houses. Or maybe they're the people who sell cooking knives. Or maybe they're the people who provide alcohol to unstable people who then get mad and murder someone.

Equally, you could say that the ISPs are like the owners of Xerox machines, which allow people to make unauthorised copies of copyrighted materials. Or maybe they're like libraries, which allow people to read copyrighted material for free.

The point, I think, is that there is no good analogy for the roles of the parties in this kind of "crime" because it's the result of a pretty much unprecedented set of circumstances related to advances in technology.

Isn't it more like, people are complaining about telephone-related fraud, so would the telephone company please listen to EVERY SINGLE phone conversation, and then report to the police all the calls that are fraud-related.

Assuming that none of the people at the endpoints of those phone calls (and especially not the people with something to hide) ever figure out the concept of a cryptographic tunnel, that's a GREAT idea!

Let's make grocers responsible for planet-wide obesity.Lets make foundrys responsible for gun related crime.Sounds like Australia has a silly tit in office.Like the old saying goes, and I believe it applies here in spite of its coarseness, "sh*t in one hand, and want in the other, then see which hand fills up first."

Not so silly, decades of work by a faith based group to get the left and right.
The filter was the deal for support.
Anything to mess with the internet really.
Their views on woman, sexuality and other faiths can be found at : http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1358912.htm [abc.net.au]
They played the long wait with both sides of politics.

Politicians make the laws. They can't just shrug and say "The courts already decided the issue".

That said, the ISPs have no incentive to spend money policing their customers. I don't think the studios are prepared to pay for any filtering either. Despite what they claim, they don't see piracy as a big enough money drain that spending loads of cash on ISP level policing would be worth it. Piracy is just an excuse to get tighter copyright laws.

Some laws are easier to change than others; for instance, if it's declared that lying about military service to get laid can't be made a crime due to the first amendment here, changing that law will be pretty much impossible. Passing a law making ISPs liable for the actions of their customers may be a lot simpler, but it may not be, depending on why they're currently unable to hold them accountable. Also, you get some nice unintended consequences most of the time - they really should ask themselves whether

The Australian constitution does not place anywhere near the limits on the government as the US one does.

The unintended consequences are irrelevant to the simple fact that the people who make the law are not showing a lack of understanding by discussing cracking down on something that a court has ruled is legal under the current laws - since they can change the laws.

All the Supreme Court has to do is enforce the first amendment correctly, eg congress will make no laws etc therefore legalizing child porn and watch how quick the constitution is amended.Come to think of it, shouldn't the first amendment override the copyright clause? At least where it infringes on free speech like singing happy birthday.

TPM/DRM at the board level and require special clients ( like netzero ) to be inserted into your IP stack. You cant have ANY file that isn't approved by the 'key server'. Even your lowly diary has to be approved, let alone music, books, movies, games, applications. Connect online without your trusty TPM enabled client, you get reported.

Great way to kill off free speech too, that old non DRM'd PDF of Mein Kampf you legally bought off Amazon years ago is no longer permitted, AND you get reported the next time you try to view it off your backup CDROM copy.

Oh, no, what they'd do is when you try to save the file it gets sent to some unelected, unaccountable office for approval, and if it is approved you'd get to see it again. Maybe even on a government approved website. And if not, that's when you get some unexpected visitors and take an indefinite vacation to an undetermined location.

It's not representational government when you blindly push your personal agenda against the objections of just about every stakeholder and expert in the system.

I wish Steven Conroy would hurry up and get caught looking at naughty pics of Miranda Kerr on the (uncensored) Internet during a newscast and fired, so the free world can stop giggling at all these Australian human rights violations and we can all get back to being the relaxed outback heroes people used to think of us as.

I think the federal coalition would be too divided by Liberal infighting than to do too much harm, although that's hardly much of a recommendation. TBH, I can't imagine Abbot winning an election, but I can't think of anyone who would do better.

Dealing with telephone companies is horrible so communications is a punishment post in government. We've had a succession of clowns under two governments in that role.If readers are familiar with Telstra and the antics of Sol Trujillo this will make more sense. He's gone now but Telstra still acts as if they have a fundamental right to be a monopoly without actually doing anything to repair their fixed line network.

Since there is no need for a plastic disk, box, paper cover, physical transportation, guarding, air-conditioning, etc. the price of a movie via download should be really attractive.

But I cannot find a place to download movies and serials legally an conveniently. I saw some sites but they often say that this movie is not for a download in your country. Or a price is really expensive.

Would it have been possible to forbid cars on early 20th century? It seems that it wouldn't, but there are Amish people who still do not use cars in their villages and towns.

Maybe the Internet without movies and serials downloads is also possible. Sort of an Amish Internet.

The Amish are not forbidden from driving cars, they do not want to. Big difference.

And I am fairly certain that the movie industry does NOT want to follow the Amish example as the Amish do not watch movies either.

What amazes me is how clearly corrupt politicians are in this area. It is clear that the people do not want it, so why do they try so damned hard? You don't see them try nearly so hard in say restricting petrol usage. So what is the money eh I mean motivator?

Restricting Petrol usage would crash the economy and plunge us back to the third world. No one want's to rule a shit hole.

It's quite simple, control the speech and you have absolute power. With out free-speech a ruler is 100% immune from any threat to their power. This is just another step towards controlling the exchange of ideas and information.

Because the legislature can rewrite the laws out from under you, which would make your court judgment so much toilet paper. Australia doesn't have a Bill of Rights; if the legislature passes a law that says, "This is the way it is," the court doesn't have any choice but to agree.

...seems to be what saved this ISP in court.
For reasons other than network integrity, any surveillance or manipulation of users' data, such as port-blocking, DNS (or simply ToS) censorship, [cough]Phorm[/cough] or Deep Packet Inspection in general lead down a road to perdition, as courts will show little mercy with defendants who through their own actions have themselves conceded (even though inaccurately, as there are still e.g. VPNs) the feasibility of the plaintiffs' outlandish demands.

Not true, they have a disconnect policy for people who have used their network outside the TOS and infringing copyright is certainly on that list.

The problem is that they were never provided with a customer who had been found guilty of infringing copyright, only allegations that had not been proven in a court of law... so they did the only sensible thing, they forwarded the allegations of crime to the police and waited for the justice system to arrive at a verdict... none were forthcoming (AFAIK).

It's not so much conceding the feasibility, as it is that the courts tend to take a black and white view of any communications carrier's responsibilities. Either you're responsible for what goes over the communication channels or not. If you don't fool with any of your customer's communications, that's cool. You haven't taken responsibility for the content, and you can't be held accountable for it. But the minute you start censoring people's messages, then you've picked up that ball and it's yours now.

If you don't fool with any of your customer's communications, that's cool. You haven't taken responsibility for the content, and you can't be held accountable for it. But the minute you start censoring people's messages, then you've picked up that ball and it's yours now. You have to take responsibility for it, 100%.

One might also say that other people's traffic is a can of worms best served closed.;-)

The moment the messenger allows itself even a sneak peek into it, let alone tries to "improve" it in whatever way, it'll find out that curiosity kills not just cats, but also ISPs at lawyerpoint.

Again the people in charge of the country show their complete ignorance of the Internet.

You could probably "most things" for "the Internet" and the statement would still be true. That's a somewhat fundermental problem with career politicians, these people tend to be out of touch with the "real world".

Short of pulling out the cable there is no possible technical solution to stop people copying files across the Internet because that's what it's for.

Here's a better idea: Force the movie/music industries to provide an attractive/convenient alternative at a realistic price. eg. You pay $2 to watch a movie on demand.

The best way to do this is for every one to just ignore them. Seriously, I have never known a failing industry to bitch, whine and act so unprofessionally as the film and music industries. We should all ignore them and let the free market take it's course, they will either adapt or die as every other business must do.

It might be a grand awakening in people all over the planet that taking stuff without paying is just somehow wrong. Unfortunately, we have been training an entire generation that taking whateve is laying around unguarded is the right thing to do. So I don't see this happening anytime soon.

It might be that worthwhile content is just not being created except in ways that make piracy impossible. The motivation to do this would come from the simple truth that

However, the real possibility to look out for is government intervention. It is simple economics. Not only are there fewer sales due to piracy but even more so there are fewer taxes paid.

And all that money is going to end up on saving accounts or simply disappear into thin air?

No, of course not. It is going to be spend on other *luxury* goods. It is infact highly likely that money spend in such way will actually be better for the economy than spending it on a product that is basically going to end up fill

Not only are there fewer sales due to piracy but even more so there are fewer taxes paid.

Except the numbers don't seem to bear that out. They grew, even during a period of economic downturn in the US. Note that for movies, the total tickets sold increased, so it's not just a result of twiddling ticket prices.

Nobody ACTUALLY obeys the law. I don't mean everyone is a criminal, I mean that people in general do what they believe to be the right thing and hopefully the law will agree with them. Sure, they know about the speed limit (because it's posted) but just look how well THAT gets followed.. They know theft and murder are illegal but that's NOT why they don't do it, they don't do it because it's morally wrong. A great many people not only don't know that downloading a file can be illegal, they don't consider i

Alternatively, the media kartels could just quit producing digital content. Why should the rest of the world be denied use of the net, when they could stop this by keeping THEIR movies on film and THEIR music on vinyl. Then the rest of us could produce our own digital images, movies, and music and the kartels could pirate us. However, they want to have their cake and eat it, too... and your cake... and my cake...

And there is another problem. To be illegal the should be a guilty party. To be guilty, one would expect some sort of court. Courts should be run by governement. They can determine what is illegal and what not. Not some private company.

1. It's not the ISP's responsibility to worry about what someone else is doing to their web site. If authorities have a problem, they should contact the site. Nevermind that it would be impossible to account for every deviance.2. The ISP is just a conduit, they should not manipulate the traffic in any way, as this would compromise their function, which is to act as the last mile in an internet connection. They do not provide the content. Should I sue the city because their streets can lead me t

There are perfectly functional court systems in various countries. Use them and use copyright law the way its written.

If you want to stop illegal file sharers, go sue them in court. If you cant find out who they are, file a John Doe lawsuit (essentially you are suing the IP address), present evidence proving that X IP address at Y time was sharing the content in question and then subpoena the ISP to get the details of which customer that corresponds to.

Senator Conroy is a religious nutjob with an agenda.He wants his net filter with a secret blacklist assembled by an organisation that is appointed by politicans and over which the public has no control whatsoever. Obtaining the blacklist would be a criminal issue.

He would go to bed with anyone who would further his vision of total control. Since that's the vision of the copyright industry as well, albeit from a profit motive rather than megalomania, they are natural allies for him.

Doesn't Au have more pressing matters to address in its country? I think so. This is just another ploy to generate more lawyer jobs that bollocks up yet another world icon-www. GET a REAL LIFE au- Don't be so pitiful.

I suspect that Australia has the same problem that many other countries have. That is far too many career politicians...

That one isn't over yet. Firstly, the flute riff wasn't in the original score, it was added during recording, so any arrangement without that line is not infringing. Secondly, there is supposedly an old welsh folksong (in the public domain) about a blackbird which is equally similar to the riff, which might reduce the damages even if it isn't enough to get the decision overturned (because the Men at Work didn't know about that song). However, they might be able to show that there is no copyright on that par

You seriously want to put people in jail for copyright infringement? So, someone downloads a 0.99$USD song illegally and you make a government waste thousands of dollars for this person?

Not him, but ACTA will do this. Interesting thing about ACTA is that the Kopyright Kartel Kompanies blame the secrecy on govermnents, and they blame one another. When kids start drawing prison terms for downloading 99-cent songs, the Kartel will claim they didn't want it and governments will claim they didn't want it, ei

It would be less trouble and cost exponentially less for the copyright holder to ask the local government for the retail price of each illegally downloaded copyrighted material than to jail them.
In other words, get real. Copyright infringement doesn't deserve jail nor does it deserve thousands and millions of dollars in damages.

Why should government do anything at all. Even if this really was a "lost sale" any actual losses would be lower than the retail price. People (including "corporate people") who

The Media Idiots don't get it - if the only choice for obtaining their product was to pay for it they'd end up selling less and not making the record-breaking profits they are now because their products would not get as much exposure as they do.

A senator with his seniority in Australia pretty much has his multi-million dollar pension secured if he's reached the top of the Victorian Senate ticket. The only way to take away his power is to get the opposition party in power. (who, last time they were in power, had protect-the-childrens-from-childporn on their minds, but at least did so by giving people software they could voluntarily use (but didn't seem to care about)